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The Penn men's fencing team was red hot going into Saturday's match. They hadn't lost since the first meet of the season and had just won a share of the Ivy League title in dramatic style against arch-rival Princeton. Despite this momentum, the No. 5 Quakers ran into a road block, falling to No. 7 Columbia, 17-10, and No. 2 Penn State, 24-3. Penn coach Dave Micahnik attributes these losses to a combination of factors, but perhaps one reason was the long break since Penn last fenced. "We lost quite a lot of practice because of the Junior Olympics last weekend and then all the snow days," he said. "I'm not sure if that was why we lost, but it's possible." In order to compensate for this loss of practice days, the Quakers were forced to practice on Friday, normally a day for the team to relax and prepare for the meet. "The idea of practice is to build to a crescendo right at the meet, not to get exhausted on Friday," Micahnik said. The match against the Lions in New York was the more crucial defeat as a Penn win would have guaranteed an undisputed Ancient Eight crown. Now the Quakers must share the title with the Lions. All three Penn squads fell to Columbia -- foil, 4-5, epee, 3-6, and sabre, 3-6. "The foil team needed to win more than it did. We needed six wins, minimum," Micahnik said. "Sabre wasn't terrible, but I was hoping for four wins." Micahnik credits this loss to a number of little mistakes. "We had the opportunity to win the meet and a couple of things got away from us," he said. One reason was a loss in several close bouts. "Fencing is a whole lot of small things, that add up to touches, that add up to bouts, that add up to meets," Micahnik said. "We lost a lot of close touches that we should have gotten. If you add the up all of the 'should haves', it would have just barely come to a win." Another little thing that contributed to the Penn loss was several questionable calls by the director. "There were some key calls that we felt pretty clearly were ours, yet we didn't get them," Micahnik said. One particular call that the Quakers were upset about was in a bout between Penn senior Yale Cohen and Columbia's Jeremy Sinkin. "The guy basically blew the call," Micahnik said. "I had no idea what he was looking at. You can lose your composure when the clearest touch of the day was reversed. But that was just one little issue that contributed to the loss." Some might argue that the Quakers, who were already guaranteed a share of the Ivy crown, didn't have as much to fight for as the Lions, but Micahnik dismisses this claim. "The Penn-Columbia dual-meet is a thing unto itself," he said. "If we had both lost all our meets all season long, we'd go like a bat our of hell at that meet anyway. Fortunately, we never find ourselves in that position -- this is not the Army-Navy football game. But it's a rivalry that doesn't need an excuse to get ferocious." The second loss of the day, to the Nittany Lions, was particularly embarrassing for Penn and its coach. "Twenty-four to three is probably the worst beating I've had since I've been coaching here," Micahnik said. "Is Penn State going to beat us? Yes, they're better than we are. But we should have given them a challenge." In this match the Quakers were also defeated in all three weapons, going 0-9 in sabre, 1-8 in epee, and 2-7 in foil. While Penn State features some of the world's best fencers, Micahnik argues that there are some fencers who the Quakers should have beat but didn't. "[Epee] Ryan Wangner is from Garden City, Long Island -- not exactly a fencing haven -- and he won three bouts," Micahnik said. "I can see him winning one but three? That's absurd. I can beat him." Micahnik attributes the lopsided score to Penn State's strong start. "When you lose a bunch of matches at the beginning, the frustration level sets in early," he said. "At some point you say to yourself, 'This isn't happening' and it's very difficult to come back from this mindset."

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